The Culture of American Families Project

Culture of AmeriCAn Families Executive Report Culture of AmeriCAn Families Executive Report Carl Desportes Bowman James Davison Hunter Jeffrey S. Dill Megan Juelfs-Swanson A publication from Culture of American families: executive report © 2012 Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. Published by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. This project was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The opin- ions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. Cover painting “Young Family” by Ulysse Desportes, Staunton, Virginia. Used with permission. To obtain additional copies of this report, contact: Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture P.O. Box 400816 University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22904-4816 (434) 924-7705 www.iasc-culture.org [email protected] Project statement 5 1 the state of the family 6 America’s Parents Are Anxious 6 Parents Say Their Families Are Doing Well 9 Are America’s Parents in Denial? 10 How Parents Are Making Do 11 2 the moral ecology of the family 16 The Complicated Circumstances of Our Times 16 Parents Want Their Children to Develop Strong Moral Character 16 Four Family Cultures 17 The Faithful—20 Percent of American Parents 18 Engaged Progressives—21 Percent of American Parents 21 The Detached—19 Percent of American Parents 25 American Dreamers—27 Percent of American Parents 29 3 thoughts for Practitioners 33 The Reality Gap—“Not My Kids” 33 The Quandary of the New Therapeutic Familism 33 The Relative Autonomy of Parents 34 The Challenge of Technology 34 The Need for Safety 34 The Significance of Family Culture 34 endnotes 36 About the Culture of AmeriCAn Families ProjeCt TheCulture of American Families Project is a three-year the good child. Interview questions explore the investigation into the family cultures that are impact- kinds of people that parents want their children ing the next generation of American adults. Designed to become and attempt to elicit the explicit and conducted by the University of Virginia’s Institute and implicit strategies parents employ in their for Advanced Studies in Culture and funded by the habits and practices of scheduling, disciplining, John Templeton Foundation, this project adapts the motivating, and communicating with their tools of contemporary social science to an investiga- children. tion that is broadly interpretive and contextual. Our goal is to distinguish the cultural frameworks and Principal findings from the survey and interviews diverse moral narratives that both inform and are are being released in two separate reports—Culture informed by American family life. Specifically, this of American Families: A National Survey and Culture involves telling the complex story of parents’ habits, of American Families: Interview Report—along with dispositions, hopes, fears, assumptions, and expecta- Culture of American Families: Executive Report that tions for their children. includes thoughts for practitioners working with American families. For more information, or to access The data for this project was collected in two stages: other reports, please visit the project website: iasc- culture.org/caf. 1. A web-based survey of a nationally representative sample of 3,000 parents of school-aged children. Research Team This one-hour survey, fielded by Knowledge Carl Desportes Bowman, PhD Networks, examines a broad range of parental Project Director priorities, aspirations, challenges, and practices, James Davison Hunter, PhD as well as a variety of other cultural and socio- Project Director demographic indicators. Data for the survey, Jeffrey S. Dill, PhD and an accompanying non-response follow-up Director of Interviews survey, were collected from September 2011 Ashley Rogers Berner, DPhil through January 2012. Director of Public Engagement 2. Follow-up, in-person interviews were Joseph E. Davis, PhD conducted with 101 of the survey respondents. Project Consultant These 90-minute, semi-structured interviews Tony Tian-Ren Lin, PhD complement the survey with open-ended Research Fellow questions designed to explore how respondents Megan Juelfs-Swanson, MA articulate their visions of the good parent and Research Assistant 6 Culture of AmeriCAn Families 1 The State of the Family America’s Parents Are Anxious This view is accompanied by a generally gloomy assessment of the family’s trajectory in American society. In the public discussion about the American family, one of the strongest themes for many years has been that • Less than 1 parent in 10 (8 percent) thinks the quality the family is an institution in disarray. Hardly anyone of American family life has improved since they were disagrees that the family is not functioning as well as it growing up. should and, as one scholar declared, “diagnosing its ills has become a cultural industry.”1 • Exactly 8 times as many (64 percent) say that family life has declined. Among the main challenges facing parents is their perception of the child’s fragility. Peter Stearn’s important What is more, decline in the family is part of a larger history of modern parenting describes the ascendancy view of decline in America: parents who think the fam- of the “vulnerable child” over the ily has declined also see a decline twentieth century. There were in our nation’s educational oppor- many reasons for the spread of the perception of family tunities, the quality of American this idea, but the advice of mid- schools, the safety of American decline is part of a larger twentieth century experts like communities, the quality of the Benjamin Spock went far toward perception that our popular media, the strength of inflaming anxieties rather than communities are less safe, the American economy, and easing them.2 Since then, this our work ethic has slipped, many other things. anxiety has only increased: and American religious and spiritual life has ebbed. Eighty percent of those who say …about the world their there has been “strong decline” in children will inherit the family also perceive a “strong decline” in American moral and • Less than a quarter of today’s parents agree that this ethical standards overall. They believe that the “honesty is a great time to be bringing children into the world and integrity of the average American” has waned. The and most say it is tougher to raise children today than perception of family decline is part of a larger percep- it was 50 years ago. tion that our communities are less safe, our work ethic has slipped, and American religious and spiritual life has Why? ebbed. • Among other things, half (49 percent) of parents agree Even though the view of family decline is widely shared, it that “in general, Americans lived more moral and eth- is more pronounced in some social contexts than others. ical lives 50 years ago” than they do today; those who White parents, for example, see greater decline than black disagree with that assessment are in the minority (only parents. Also perceptions of strong decline are highest 24 percent). among the very religious and among Republicans. ExEcutivE REpoRt 7 FiguRe 1 — Perception That American Family Life is Declining by Race/ethnicity. 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 Percent Seeing Family Decline 30 20 10 0 Black Hispanic White Race/Ethnicity …about outside influences Concern about other adults has real-world consequences for children’s lives too. A black mother of three we inter- One of the major uncertainties of American parenting viewed says that her children are outside very little. pertains to outside threats. In this crazy world that we live in today, you • 4 out of 5 parents believe that “children are very vul- don’t know your neighbors like you used to… nerable and must be protected.” (Less than 15 percent [It’s] like the whole block, nobody knows each disagree.) other like they used to and we just feel it’s a risk to let them go over to other people’s houses. I • Roughly the same number (83 percent) claim, “I don’t know what those people do in their house. invest much effort in protecting my children from negative social influences.” Women tend to have a sharper sense that their children must be protected than men, and parents who Parents share a sense that the world, at least insofar as are religiously observant have a keener sense than the children are concerned, is a threatening place. The great- non-religious. Political affiliation, however, has little to est worries and fears for their children center on injury do with the matter. In fact, parents who self-identify as in an accident, kidnapping or sexual assault, addiction to Democrats are just as likely as Republicans to say they alcohol and drugs, and lack of ambition to succeed in life. invest much effort in protecting their children. 8 Culture of AmeriCAn Families …about new technology • 7 out of 10 of teenagers are texting at least once a day, and nearly as many (64 percent) are texting multiple Some of the parents’ sense of danger clearly attaches times daily. to dimly perceived threats of media and technology. It is true that most American parents see cell phones • 4 out of 5 teens have a Twitter, Facebook, or other and the expansion of internet-based social network- social networking account where they “follow” and ing like Facebook and Twitter as mostly good for our “friend” people whom their parents don’t know, much society, but large swaths see it negatively: 41 percent less “friend.” regard the expansion of internet social networking as mostly negative and 34 percent regard cell phones in • Two-thirds of teenagers connect to their online social the same way.

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